Ben has 25 years’ experience working as a lawyer in the health and social care sector and is a Partner in our Leeds office.
Acting for health and social care providers and commissioners nationwide, including the NHS, local authorities and private sector, Ben has been rated as one of the leading Court of Protection lawyers in the country for more than a decade.
Ben's expertise covers issues of consent and mental health and mental capacity/best interests decision making, both for adults and children, as well as wider issues around delayed or disputed discharges, deprivation of liberty, safeguarding, confidentiality and duty of candour. Ben routinely deals with out of hours and emergency issues about medical treatment, including urgent court applications.
Ben has a masters' degree in medical law and ethics, and is also a qualified mediator, with a particular interest in the use of mediation to resolve medical treatment disputes outside court.
Ben is the author of “A Practical Guide to the Law of Medical Treatment Decisions” (Law Brief Publishing), published in September 2020, and “A Practical Guide to the Law on Deprivation of Liberty”, due to be published late in 2023.
Ben is often quoted or published in the health and social care sector press. He has a decade of experience of sitting on the clinical ethics committee of a large acute NHS trust, is a current member of the Law and Ethics Policy Unit of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, and the Mental Health and Disability specialist committee of the Law Society, as well as a role as a Research Associate to the Essex Autonomy Project. In 2021 Ben was awarded a commendation by the Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine for his contribution to the profession.